Garrick in the Character of Richard III

William Hogarth (1697 - 1764)

RA Collection: Art

Engraving reproducing William Hogarth's painting of his friend David Garrick playing Richard III (1745, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool). The image shows Richard on the eve of the Battle of Bosworth Field, in which he was killed (the reference to the text and the presence of an armed camp in the background reflects Hogarth's use of Colley Cibber's version of the play). As Einberg shows, both Garrick's facial expression and the picture as a whole draw upon the works of Charles Le Brun in a deliberate attempt to move away from Hogarth's earlier theatrical works and emulate the scale and grandeur of French history painting. Hogarth recorded proudly that the £200 he received for the painting from 'Mr Duncombe' was 'more than any portrait painter was ever know[n] to receive for a portrait'.